10:40 amSo, Pittsburgh, after building the new stadiums, conference center, etc. is basically out of money. There have been several proposals by the various city officials on how to deal with this, and we'll see what the long term solutions are. The mayor, a man of staggering ideas, took action a couple of weeks ago: reduce the number of sanitation and safety (police, fire) employees. This has, so far, made the following impacts:

No Animal Control -- it has been months since the last time there was a show of law enforcement at Frick, or likely elsewhere. Given the real Animal Control issues, and that there is now approximately one ACO active at any time in the whole extended area...

Trash Delays -- unexpected, but yes indeed. Trash is picked up on Mondays, and this week was also a recycling week, as confirmed in the calendar I received last week. Like everyone else in the neighborhood, I diligently put my trash out the night before, despite this activity keeping me active at 4am. I've found that inevitably, the day I decide to do it in the morning, unless I get up at 6am, will be the day the trash collectors come early (window: 8am-2pm, actual arrival: 7:15am). That didn't happen this week. This week, the trash was collected around 12pm on Tuesday, and the recycling sometime around 3pm.

Otherwise, it pains me to hear city council members' soundbytes on the radio where they specifically call into question (and propose cancelling or halting) the frisbee fields. Its such a good idea it is painful: the Ultimate community and the City are each putting up 1/2 the price (100K each) to design and build three lit ultimate frisbee fields (and near my house, no less). The city will retain possession of the fields, and be able to permit the fields to whoever they want. All Ultimate gets out of it is the existence of good in-the-city fields, and first priority in the permitting process. Talking at Zodiac from people in Rochester, Toronto, Ottawa, all with thriving Ultimate scenes, this is exactly what the city most needs because Ultimate people are the kind of demographic the city wants to retain. But no.

They still haven't completely laughed off the demands of financing and building the Penguins a new arena. Silly city.